Germany bans the country's largest motorcycle club

Germany has banned and dissolved the country's largest motorcycle club, the "Bandidos MC Federation West Central" and its 38 sub-organizations, the Federal Ministry of the Interior (BMI) said here on Monday.

Instead of just promoting motorcycle riding together, the club, whose members were prone to violence, was primarily concerned with its "criminal self-assertion against competing rocker groups and other organizations," the BMI noted.

The assets of the club have been confiscated, according to the BMI. The crimes committed by its approximately 650 members included grievous bodily harm and even homicides.

Last month, a local chapter of the Bandidos club in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia was already disbanded. The Ministry of the Interior proved that the subsequent self-dissolution of the national group was only a sham and that the Bandidos still existed.

"Those who trample our laws do not disappear from the radar of our security authorities just because they declare their self-dissolution," Germany's Minister of the Interior Horst Seehofer said.